The Ringer-Verse - ‘Borderlands’ Bombed. What Went Wrong? | Button Mash

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Haven’t seen ‘Borderlands,’ the latest video game movie? You have chosen wisely. Ben, Rob Mahoney, and Matt James chose poorly, and they’re here to report on the brand-new box office flop. They begin by bantering about the demise of Game Informer and the end of the era of video game magazines (6:00). Then they review ‘Borderlands’ (16:00) and discuss how it got made (36:00) and why it became a debacle that snapped a streak of strong game adaptations (44:24). They conclude by weighing whether ‘Borderlands’ is the worst movie to feature multiple Oscar winners (52:00), comparing it to previous video game movie misfires (53:00), fantasy-casting their own improbably star-studded video game movies (59:00, and picking the upcoming adaptations they’re most anticipating (1:05:00). Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Rob Mahoney and Matt James Producer: Devon Renaldo Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Services not available in all areas. God, I hate this plan. That smell. Piswage gully. Ew. Put the window up. I don't want you. Roll the window up.

It's tea. It's peat. Why do you think it's called pisswash? How did it get to me? It's in my mouth. Do you know how many people have died? Looking for this vault? We have something they don't, baby girl.

Okay. What? Major issues. Hello and welcome. Into The Ringerburst, your nexus feed for all things band-up. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor at The Ringer and Hunter for the Vault of video game content. On Pandora, it's dangerous to go vault hunting alone, almost as dangerous as devoting an hour and 40 minutes of your life to the major motion picture, Borderlands.

Which I did, because I'm brave and devoted to my job as Button Mash host. Despite what the box office figures might say, I was not the only one in the world to make this sacrifice. Like Lilith, I set out alone, but soon assembled a rag-tag group of podcast companions who, unlike Lilith's on-screened companions, are perfectly cast. With me is a man whose wife wisely declined his offer to accompany him to a borderland screening, which makes me think highly of her and also suggests both that she has great taste in spouses and that we've got great taste in guests. I speak, of course, of the ringer's deputy art lead, Matt, Matt Trap James. Oh, she's a smart woman. Yeah, smart woman. Don't bring a date to borderlands, people.

Certainly not a first date. Even if it's someone who married you, marital bonds can be broken. They're not necessarily ironclad. How does the vow go for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till borderlands do us part, potentially?

Also joining the group chat, fresh off of covering Team USA's fifth straight Olympic triumph and here to discuss the cinematic opposite of Steph Curry draining clutch threes to deliver the gold. It's Ringer Senior Staff Writer, handsome Rob Mahoney. Wow, I'll take that, but I was worried I had done something to offend you to be involved in this podcast. To be asked to watch Borderlands, I was wondering what I had done to wrong you, Ben.

So where did I go wrong with you? I figured you're up for anything. You're a good sport. There are only so many people I could call to see this movie and inflicts this film on them. Just to assess how your weekend went, did you see Borderlands before or after Steph's performance? Oh, I did see it before. Okay. That's a relief.

I'd hate to be responsible for borderlands bringing you down from the high of the gold medal game. That'd be a bad way to end. You also don't want the taste of this movie to linger with you for too long. So whatever your borderlands plans may be, if you do intend to see it, I would schedule something nice for yourself afterwards. Like this podcast, perhaps. As that intro made clear, we are here today to talk about a movie that not only failed to metal, but in fact, flopped like Raygun doing the kangaroo dance. Sorry, Raygun. The latest but

but not greatest video game adaptation, Borderlands, which came out on Friday in theaters and made about one-sixth as much money in its opening weekend as Deadpool and Wolverine did in its third weekend. Hollywood has had a great run with video game adaptations lately, but that success stops here. We are going to break down just how bad Borderlands is, what went wrong, what we can learn from the Borderlands debacle. This will be like button mash meets how did this get made? We'll try to solve the mystery of this mess together. And unlike most moviegoers who bought a ticket to Borderlands, we'll hopefully have some fun along the way. And by the way, we know judging again by the box office figures that most of you haven't seen this movie, that's okay. In fact, we wouldn't

recommend that you see this movie. We saw it to spare you the pain and expense. This podcast may include story spoilers, but honestly, I'm not sure we could spoil Borderlands any more than the people who made the movie spoiled Borderlands. So if something we say makes you less likely to see it, we'll be doing you a favor. The biggest plot twists of all is that this movie came out. Rob, when I asked you if you were willing to see you Borderlands, you said, I'm kind of mystified by its existence, so it would be good to get to the bottom of it. Do you feel like you did?

No. I did sit through it. I'll say, I'll give Borderlands credit. You know, there are some movie experiences you walk out of and you want to immerse yourself in the lore of the world. You really want to get a sense of like every detail. What was going on on the edges of every frame? I did have that experience with Borderlands,

but in a production capacity. You will walk out of the theater wondering how this could have possibly happened. How these people could have been involved? Were these people ever in the same rooms together? I think remains to be. scene, but I did have a lot of questions, and I can't say I'm any closer to solving it. We will get to the behind-the-scenes story of Borderlands, which, as you say, may be more interesting than what's actually on the screen. But before we open Pandora's vault, let's banter about a bit

of news. Borderlands died at the box office, but it wasn't the only video game IP to bite the dust this month. Earlier in August, GameStop kind of cringly announced the shutdown of Game Informer, which I think was the last living, surviving member of Video Game Magazine Mount Rushmore. You used to have EGM, Electronic Gaming Monthly, which started in 1988, and stopped publishing monthly in 2009. And quarterly about a decade ago, there was Nintendo Power, of course, which also originated in 88 and ended in 2012. There was GamePro, which launched in 89 and ceased publication in 2011. And those brands survived in various online incarnations. But in print, the last mag standing was the venerable game informer,

which was founded as the in-house newsletter of GameStop predecessor Funkoland, to tell you how long ago that happened, 33 years ago this month. It later became part of the GameStop rewards program, which propped it up a little longer than those other publications. But it finally unceremoniously succumbed to GameStop's meme stock death spiral. So we figured we'd offer a brief salute. Matt, give me your game-informed feelings. Just overwhelming sadness.

As a kid who had subscriptions to so many of these video game magazines back in the day, it's a sad moment. It's sad especially for everyone who lost their jobs, obviously, which is just awful. But in a broader sense, it really is the end of an era. Yeah. You know, growing up before the Internet as an old. who was once young, these game magazines were a highlight of your month,

if you were a gamer back in the day. You didn't have access to the internet. They would tell you which games were good, which you'd have no way of knowing otherwise. You know, if you were into fighting games, they'd publish move lists, there were cheats, upcoming news out of E3,

previews of games. Demo discs. Demo discs, even, for some of them. I mean, you just weren't an information black hole and these beautifully printed magazines would show up at your doorstep, and it was just a real moment of excitement every month. And even beyond that era, just the journalism to come out of all of these magazines that's now, you know, lost and gone. It's a sad time. It's sad. Rob, did young Rob Mahoney also have a stack of sticky gaming magazines under your mattress?

There were certainly magazines. I want to attest to their physical. physical state. But yeah, I think the demo disc quality, the like trickling of anticipation is something I think about a lot in terms of what we have lost in the information overload era. And I like the kind of info black hole you talked about Matt of like, you don't know what these games are. You don't know when they're going to come out. You don't know what the gameplay is going to be like, save for a few still shots in one of these magazines a couple months in advance and some like pithy description. And the way that we're kind of so divorced from that mindset now, we learn so much so quickly, even about games that are in development. Hell, I would say sometimes we know too

much about the stages of these games. That part feels so divorced from where we are today and so divorced from this idea of like just waiting forever and ever for games that are constantly in delay cycles. I almost would rather go back in so many ways to knowing so much less about the releases of many things video games included. I guess this is just like the ongoing adventures and maybe the internet was a mistake, but I do miss this era of game production. Yeah, IDNNN GameSpot launched in 96, so there was certainly online coverage

when we were young or young-ish, but 28.8 kilobits per second downloads weren't ideal for viewing visuals, I guess. Not that dial-up speed stopped people from finding corn, but if you wanted video game corn, actually there's a lot of that too. Maybe Van Leighton can come on to talk about that with us sometime. I mean video game preview porn, upcoming games, if you wanted those steamy hands-on impressions and those luscious screenshots, the best place to get them was in these glossy monthly magazines.

And, yeah, EGM and GamePro and co were my playboy in Penthouse, I guess. I don't know what that says about my childhood. But I write about sports and the way that a lot of sports writers reminisce about Sports Illustrated showing up in their mailbox every month, I'm not going to say that the quality of the journalism and the long-form. writing was necessarily the same in some of these magazines all the time, not that there wasn't good writing, but the level of anticipation, because again, there were just so few other avenues to find out what was coming. I had literal gaming magazine pinups on my walls. I used to cut out pages and staple them together. I remember before PS2 and GameCube and Xbox came out, I had like a countdown to their release dates on my wall with pages of games for each system I was looking forward to.

I remember being supersighted for the PS2 game Drop Ship United Peace Force. I don't know about anyone else. Sometimes the reality didn't match the anticipation, but that was part of the fun too. And yeah, you're right that a lot of that is just inaccessible now. But what with LinkRot and Digital Decay, I guess digitized print magazines? in some cases may be more accessible than more recent online content, right? Which just disappears. Like, you can find old Game Informer Mags,

but the website, at least for now, just takes you to this farewell chat GPT, GameStop authored message. So you just hope like the Wayback Machine archived some of the stuff from the last decade or two or it could just be gone. Yeah, I've found actually there's a website called Retro Mags that has archived, you know, a lot of old magazine. If anyone is listening to this who's too young to have been

around for the 90s heyday of video game magazines, you can go on there and you can take a look at what Electronic Gaming Monthly was like what was going on at a particular time in video game history. I remember specifically waiting with crazy anticipation for the reviews for the first N64 games to come out.

And that feels, that sort of feeling of waiting for the information to drop is almost gone. The only way it sort of lives on is when you know that there's a review embargo for a certain game. And you wake up that morning being like, oh, boy, I'm going to open the internet and find out if this game is good or not. So it lives on slightly. But the degree to which the information wasn't there and then suddenly would be, it was a particular time, for sure. We're definitely losing recipes. It really is tough to live through this air.

I don't know what it is about the demo disc part of this specifically that I feel especially old man nostalgic for, but it just hits different having this weird curated combination of like eight games, seven of which you will never play under any circumstances served to you to try out in 10 minute increments. Like the poo platter of that is something that I miss even though how many of those games were even important to me. I don't know. Yeah. I kind of feel like the demo is coming back on Steam, at least, because there are just so many games now that they have to give you a taste or else it'll just get lost in the shuffles. Well, thanks for indulging us as we reminisce about better days or at least earlier days, different days. Sometimes there's still a news information blackout, like when Borderlands takes three years to come out after they finish filming. Although in that case, it's not so much anticipation as dread, I guess. But look, this is not unique. This is not unique. This is. is happening to print media. It has happened to print media and online media, for that matter. It's not like the video game online press is doing so hot either.

So this could be a more general lament. But the demise of Game Informer just felt like the real end of something, kind of like the last link severed. So we figured we would briefly press F to pay respects here. That is our ode to Game Informer, our GI tract, if you will, with the shuddering of Game Informer marking the end of an error in gaming, it actually almost makes me happy

that the demise of another tradition that dates back to the early 1990s, the bad video game movie, was at least slightly exaggerated because Borderlands is here to reassure us that video game adaptations can still suck in 2024. Yeah, I'm kind of glad Game Informer

didn't live to see this. Right. But first, this weekend, while Borderlands was bombing, Disney teased its upcoming projects at D23. Now it is time for us to tease our upcoming episodes in our programming reminders. Coming up on the Ring ofverse feed later this week is nothing. That's right.

Absolutely nothing else will be released on the Ring ofverse feed this week. Barring unanticipated nerd news, this is a wrap for the Ring ofverse until next week. The summer content onslaught has slowed and we're given the Midnight Boys a break. Either that or we are clearing the feed for this blockbuster. button mash borderlands pod. We just wanted it to have the full spotlight. It's just going to do huge numbers. After their breather, the boys will be back next week. And if this episode doesn't tied you over till then, check out House of Art, where Mal and Joe hopped up on COVID antibodies will be doing a medium dive, so maybe only two to three hours into Deadpool and Wolverine,

along with some thoughts on the state of Marvel post-comiccon and D23. Later this week, they will be closing the book on House of the Dragon's second season with a book look-ahead slash mailbag slash award ceremony. Of course, Buttmash will be back at the end of the month for the release of Star Wars Outlaws. And as always, you can email us at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways. Catchup goes rogue ice cream drips.

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on Paramount Plus. All right, let's talk about Borderlands, based on a game, which was fittingly enough unveiled via the September 2007 cover of Game Informer. Hell yeah. We used to be a country. We used to be a civilization. That's how we would break news. One of the questions surrounding Game Informer's demise is what will happen to the famous Game Informer Vault, the repository of all the games and memorabilia sent to Game Informer's offices since 1991. If you're into vaults and video games and you've already finished Fallout, then this is theoretically, theoretically, theoretically, theoretically, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart, Jack.

Black, Ariana Greenblatt and other people you've probably heard of. Here's the tale of the tape. 9% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, 27 on Metacritic with an almost matching 2.8 user score, D plus cinema score, which is a passing grade, but barely. 8.8 million bucks at the domestic box office, 16.5 million worldwide in its opening weekend on a more than $110 million budget. In other words, even Tiny Tina could not construct a bomb this big. Move over Morbius. Move over Madam Webb. There's a new disastrous adaptation in town.

Guys, give me your quick capsule reviews. Rob, you're a movie lover. After seeing Borderlands, do you still love movies? Barely. Maybe they were a mistake. The word that kept coming to mind for me watching this movie was embarrassing. Like it is a truly embarrassing production and experience. It looks terrible.

I have no idea why anyone who is in it is in it and why they're playing the roles that they are. Most of the plot is incomprehensible. I think it actually is trying to be loyal to a video game experience in a way that betrays the fact that there is an actual story to this movie at all, really. It is much more mission-based than it is story-based. They just, they fell on their faces in so many ways.

I wish I could say that that was a reason to recommend it in a so bad it's good way, but it's honestly, it's not even that. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the Borderlands movie? I will say there was a smattering of occasional laughter in my screening. First of all, there were other humans there, which I was impressed with. And they seemed to at least get some of the jokes. I found most of it falls super flat. I don't know how you felt about the sense of humor in this movie, Matt.

Yeah, there were actual, I think there were a number of audible chuckles throughout my screening. No laughter, but I feel like, you know, the worst jokes did fall flat. But more often than not, they got an acknowledgement of a reaction from that. Just kind of a, you know, that was a joke. Okay. I recognize that for what it was attempting to be. Yet you and I were at a critic screening, separate critic screenings, which are not rock.

crowds in the best of circumstances, but it was pin drop level silent as we exited our respective theaters. Yes, absolute silence. You know, you are walking out of the screening of a normal movie and people are talking about how they feel, about what they just saw. When you leave a critic screening of a bad movie, it is respectfully silent. Yes, it's sort of like, you know, leaving the theater after some sort of like skin flick in old school Times Square, like no one making eye contact with each other. We weren't actually sharing a theater together here. Let's just go our separate ways. There's a surprisingly pornographic bent to this pod today. I don't know where this energy is coming

from because it's not for borderlands, but it's coming from somewhere. Yes, somewhere in the recesses of my minds. Matt, what did you make of the movie other than the fact that it technically contained jokes? Yeah, let me just start out by saying that I have been a big fan of the board. Borderlands games since the very first Borderlands. And that being said, I never wanted this movie. I never even began to want this movie. As far as story and characters and all of that goes for Borderlands, that was always something that was there for me in the game.

I occasionally appreciated the humor in the games. I also at times found the tone to be loud and obnoxious. But the reason I kept coming back to the games was because these are excellent looters shooters, the way that they have different kinds of gun manufacturers in this world. And you sort of get to know what a gun is going to be like based on who the manufacturer is and all of the different loot that you can get, the modifications to the guns. And the gameplay is fast and exciting. And it's just a very satisfying gameplay. But the story, of this game was never anything particularly compelling to me.

And Rob, you said, you know, this felt more mission-based than story-based. Well, they nailed that. Yeah, that's the thing. But, you know, that being said, as someone who never wanted this movie to begin with, I feel like I was pretty right about that. It just felt like an entire cutscene that I just couldn't skip through to get back to the gameplay. Yeah.

And the casting choice, and it is. to this being not the best source of to do you make a entertaining story out of, the casting choices were so distracting to me. I just could never recover from Kevin Hart and Kate Blanchard being in

this movie. I just could never recover, and they're on screen the entire time, and bless their hearts, they're trying their best. The casting is just mind-boggling to me. Kevin Hart is the straight man in this movie. What are you doing?

Yeah. Who does that serve? Yeah. Yeah, Loud and obnoxious is not necessarily a barrier to success, as Deadpool and Wolverine has proved, making more than a billion dollars. But this particular brand of obnoxious and Loud is not a winning formula. I tried very hard not to prejudge this movie, which was difficult because I'm not sure any other movie has had more red flags pre-release than this one. We can run down some of the red flags a little later. I'll say this much. Coming out of the theater, I thought it was merely generic run-of-the-mill bad, not all-time terrible bad. Same. Now, maybe my opinion has been somewhat swayed negatively by the reaction so far, but when I actually saw it, I didn't think any positive thoughts necessarily, but I guess my expectations were so low coming into this that it certainly cleared that bar, which, again, it's not really an endorsements, but forgettable, I would say, more so than unforgettably bad, like, will haunt my dreams forever kind of movie.

And I've seen some people say that Cape Blanchett phoned in her performance. I could not disagree more. Yeah, I don't agree with that. Yeah, I know everyone's joking about how at the end of Tar, the ultimate comeuppance for Cape Blanchet's characters, that she has to conduct the music of Monster Hunter in front of the throng of cosplayers and now the actor who played Tar is starring in Borderlands. but clearly, Kate Blanchett wasn't canceled and forced to appear in this movie. She looks to me like she's having a better time than anyone else, audience included.

And in an interview with Empire, she explained how this happened, which I think everyone was wondering. She said, the gun-slinging stuff was so much fun. I got really absorbed in that whole world. I think there also may have been a little COVID madness. I was spending a lot of time in the garden using the chainsaw a little too freely. my husband said, this film could save your life, which raises a lot of questions about Kate Blanchett's garden in my mind. Just legend shift, though.

Gardening with a chainsaw. I think I'd rather watch that. Yes, honestly. She's just taking a chainsaw to the topiaries or something. But we all, I think, went a little stir crazy during the pandemic and during lockdowns and everything. It's just that most of us were an approach to play Lilith in the Borderlands movie. And whether she was the right choice for the part or not.

I guess we could debate, but her actual performance is quite committed to the point where I kind of want to see Cape Blanchet in better action movies now. Like, can she make a late career Liam Neeson style pivot? Because you can put her in the schlockiest trash and she'll make it halfway watchable, which is not a bad borderlands description, halfway watchable. It kept me awake, but it didn't excite me or make me chuckle more than once. but Cape Ledge, but to the degree that it held my attention, it was because of her performance.

Yeah. It's a really uphill battle for her. And there were times in the movie where that character, which, you know, canonically is a much younger character, but, you know, that's fine, change things. It's not like this is sacred text or anything. Well, we should say the character was spoken to in the movie as if she's a much younger character.

There's a lot of, like, your mom told me when you were younger, but you're saying it to Kate Blanchett and not like a 21-year-old. Exactly. The movie is, it's fine if you're going to make the, you know, Kate Blanchett, Lilith, and you age up the character. But it was still written as if she was in her 20s. There were like very like immature mood swings that the character would have as a young person might have. And to see Kate Blanchett have these like moments of immaturity, it was just like, this doesn't really seem like it. And then there's, you know, Jamie Lee Curtis is playing. playing somewhat of a maternal figure at times to Kate Blanchett in some flashbacks. And you're just like, what? You're instantly on your phone Googling the ages of these actors. Yeah. Although, you know, after Alicent and Amund in season two of House of the Dragon,

you know, maternal son age gaps will never be the same for me. So that's a full decade between Jamie Lee Curtis and Kay Blanchett. That makes it more acceptable, I guess. But I think maybe the biggest problem, it's just kind of, you know, maybe this is a problem with the movie. Maybe it's also just an attribute of Borderlands the series. But it comes off as just this sort of soup of Fallout meets Mad Max, meets twisted metal, meets Guardians of the Galaxy. Right? There's a very kind of low rent guardians banter kind of thing going on.

It's just reminiscent of, but way worse than any of those things. And as Rob said, it's not bad enough to be fun. Like, you wouldn't choose Borderlands to be your bad movie watch, right? No. Because it's just, it's not silly in that way, you know? It's just kind of bland, but not in a way that makes you think, like, what is happening here. Although, certainly we did think what was happening here, and we will get to how it happened in just a moment. Now, on the Midnight Boys, Chuck provides a plot synopsis in the Midnight Manifest.

So here's the MASH manifest for Borderlands. the movie takes place on Pandora, not that Pandora. The original Borderlands actually came out the year before Avatar, so suck it, James Cameron. This was the Avatar before Avatar. But Lilith, the bounty hunter

played by Blanchett, is hired by Sinister Corporate Titan Atlas, played by Edgar Ramirez, to quote-unquote rescue his quote-unquote daughter, Tiny Tina, played by Greenblatt. She's already been liberated by Roland, played by Hart,

and Krieg, played by Florian Montianneu, and Lilith teams up with them, realizes that actually she's the baddie. She doesn't want to be the baddie, so she's the goodie. And the robot clap trap is with them too, played by Black. After they all find out that Atlas is trying to recapture Tiny, not rescue her, Tina, it turns out, was genetically engineered from remnants of the ancient Orridian race. There's a great kind of like half-baked lore dump exposition. scene in the very beginning, which is like, what if you took the Kate Blanchet narration from the

beginning of Lord of the Rings, but just made it much dumber and less interesting. It's kind of like that to explain Eridian technology. And so they're trying to open this vault, this erridian vault on Pandora. And so our heroes have to go on a fetch quest to recover keys to the vault with the help of Dr. Tanis, played by Curtis, who's an expert on iridian technology and was also entrusted by Lilith's mother to raise her, which she didn't do very well. Meanwhile, Atlas is tracking Lilith and sending soldiers against her and her new friends, who mistakenly believe that she betrayed them,

all of which culminates in a showdown and boss battle with very suspect CGI at the vault, where we learned something about Lilith that's supposed to be a surprise but is actually quite obvious all along if you're paying any attention. How did I do? Did I leave out any important plot points from Borderlands, the movie? I don't know that there were many important plot points, but you covered what they covered. I do have a question about the ending. Are we allowed to talk about the full range of this

movie? Is that okay? I think we can. Yeah. So at the end of this movie, as you said, Lilith and her pals, they get the best of John P. Atlas or whatever his name is. Cool, got it. Everyone, they save the day in whatever extent they're trying to save it. They keep him from obtaining the technology in the vault. Then they go to the sanctuary city and everyone is celebrating them as heroes and are popping off fireworks. And my question is,

Return of the Jedi style. For sure, that is the exact vibe. What did they do that was worth celebrating and what did they actually accomplish in the scheme of this movie? They reshot the footage in such a form that it could be released in theaters. That honestly seems like about it.

Like the connection between. I agree. They rolled up and I was, and fireworks were popping off. And I was like, oh, I didn't realize that people were down with them like that. Does anyone know who these people are or what they're doing in any capacity for them?

Yeah. Right. It seemed like we're in a competitive environment to all get to the vault and there would perhaps be the opposite reaction of someone who actually got to the vault. Dare we say that's kind of the point of the games. Yes. It's an excellent question. I do appreciate that they didn't even. really go through the motions of having a teaser for the sequel, right? Like there was kind of a

stinger, like a little look at Claptrap, but not really like taking for granted that there's going to be a borderlands too, which I think is all but certain that there is not, at least in movie form. So the reason why we're doing a pot on this, just aside from the fact that this is Button Mashes Bailey Wick, we talk about video game adaptations, bad or good. And here we are just dumping on this movie, but I am kind of curious about why it turned out this way. and what we can learn from this, and what future producers and directors and writers can do differently, because it seemed like Hollywood had learned some valuable lessons,

and maybe it has learned those lessons. And it's just that Borderlands, because it's been in the can for so long, is almost a remnant of an earlier era before we figured out how to make these movies. But I am also just kind of curious about the nature of the adaptation, just how conducive to adaptation is Borderlands, because this movie sort of loosely follows the plot to the extent that there is a plot of Borderlands, the first game. But it's an original story set within the Borderlands universe. So let's talk about Borderlands, the 15-year-old looter shooter franchise from Gearbox, one of the best-selling video game series ever.

Matt, you've played more Borderlands than Rob and I have. So how ripe for adaptation would you consider Borderlands to be? And if it's not really ripe for that, how much, if any, of this flop is the fault of the source material as opposed to what was made of the source material. Well, I don't think you can fault the source material, which is a video game, for being extremely a video game. But you certainly can fault the people who picked it to, you know, make a movie out of a game that the, just the focal point in the celebration, the reasons why this game are good, have had very little to do with the story.

And the one thing that I think you could pull from the Borderlands series that would translate to the screen very well is that you're constantly in the Borderlands game being introduced in a bombastic way to new, eccentric, weird characters. It's sort of like an onslaught of like, here's a new character, it's crazy in this way. and we didn't really get that in the movie. They had a lot of characters from the games.

There were a bunch missing. But you didn't even really need to pull specific characters from the game so much as you needed to pull the spirit of like, look at around every corner. There's a weird, eccentric little group of people led by this guy or this woman or, you know, just that feeling of around every corner something bizarre to discover. And that is not present in the movie.

Yeah. So there's the maybe miscasting. You mentioned omissions. There's no handsome jack in the movie, right? Maybe the most beloved character from these games, one of the better villains. So there's that, I guess. There's also just the precedent of the tales from the Borderlands games, right?

Tales from the Borderlands and new tales from the Borderlands. which I read gave Gearbox confidence that there was enough meat to the material to sort of support a story without the gameplay. And those games are well liked, right? And so there is something to this universe and this world. I mean, it feels like a lived in place. And so you can construct a narrative adventure within the universe of Borderlands without that kind of core shooter slash RPG slash looting gameplay.

loop, right? So one could imagine that there is a movie you could craft that would be fun and kind of channel the spirit of Borderlands even without the interactive elements, right? It just wasn't this movie. Yeah, I think in order to do that, you would have to zero it on something Matt mentioned earlier, which is the gameplay loop feeling fun and engaging. And Borderlands, too, looks and sounds fun. This movie does not look or sound fun. Like, it is severely lacking for style to the point that even some of the needle drops, like when how you like me now, queued up,

I just audibly groaned. Like, there is no style to be found anywhere in this movie. They don't do any work in adapting, not directly the gameplay loop of Borderlands, but the world of Borderlands into something comprehensible. Hearing that Tales from the Borderlands

gave them confidence is so confusing to me because this is so much the opposite of the tonality and of the idea of kind of taking a broader world and zooming in on a different part of it. Like, that could be successful. There's, look, there's enough post-apocalyptic-type movies

in a desert wasteland to know this stuff can work, even if it's on a different planet with or without a vault. But they didn't do any of that. They made it into a weird, chosen-one narrative that could not have been more obvious. So let's talk about how this got made and how it didn't get made, which is probably just as important.

We can kind of trace the twists and turns that this project took. And the origins of the movie go back to, 2011, when the CEO of Gearbox first discussed an adaptation with Aviar Rod, one of the formative figures of the MCU, controversial figure in his own right, who ended up producing the movie. Maybe you guys can just help me out here. I'll just throw out some elements of the development of this film. You can tell me if any of them are positive signs, generally speaking. So the film was first announced in 2015. When it takes almost 10 years to get a movie made, would you consider that?

a good omen? Absolutely. A James Cameron movie. Yeah. That's wrong stewing. They're just developing new tech. They spend a lot of time underwater and some just like our buddy Jim. I think it paid off.

How about when a project cycles through several writers, including Craig Mason, maybe, of Mythic Quest and Chernobyl and The Last of Us, who reportedly, according to some reports, had his name removed from the credits after his script was rewritten. Now, Mason has written some bad movies. not saying Mason's version would have been good. I guess it got rewritten for a reason, but at least he really likes games, whereas Roth didn't seem to have

any pre-existing attachment to her affection for borderlands. So tons of creative turnover. Good sign, bad sign, neutral. What would you say? We love collaboration here on bottom mesh. Yeah, it takes a village, I guess, really. So, okay. You could really feel throughout the movie

that this was a piece of, of media that had been wrestled between parties and cut up and altered and altered and fought over. And I think that if there's one positive that I could really highlight of this movie, is that I get the sense that for it to end up in the state that it is, as you and I, Ben would probably put as a D plus, like, slightly passable. It feels like it must have taken a, Herculean effort to get it to this point.

I think somebody saved this to the degree that it could at least be released, but there are still occasionally signs where you can still see that at points. Like early on during the narration from Kate Blanchett's character, at some point, you know, she starts out sort of setting the scene for the movie, and then a few minutes into it, you're like, wait a minute, you seem to just be telling us about plot points that mysteriously weren't shot. And we're just going to coast over that. You told us that something happened.

We didn't see it. Some of it I was very grateful for. This movie does feel like a fetch quest masquerading as a movie. But thankfully, the first part of the fetch quest is already, like they already have one part of the key in hand by the time we joined the story and thank Christ. If this movie had been 20 minutes longer and they had to find that too,

I think it would have truly broken me. Yeah, you're reminding me, my favorite part of the movie, actually. It's when they have two of the three McGuffins. Yes. And then they realize, you know what? We already have the third. It's the fifth element.

We got it. Let's go. Get out of here. Well, that leads me to my next question. Plus or minus, typically, when a movie doesn't come out for more than three years after filming wraps, a period that included reshoots done by not the original director, but by Deadpool director and Sonic producer Tim Miller. And then that finished film gets.

dumped in the August summer movie wasteland. What does that typically augur for a film? I think just people who are caring about the project and want to get it right. Yeah, yeah, take your time, cut no corners. Exactly. And finally, how about when a movie is intended to be R-rated and it's shot evidently with a ton of over-the-top violence and gore, but then gets recut by those people who were so painstakingly pouring over the footage, presumably, into a more family-friendly PG-13 movie. Would you say that bodes well? God, you could really feel this.

Yeah. Yeah. In that opening monologue, Kate Blanchett says something to the effect of like, well, that's a bunch of BS. I'm like, what are we doing? Why is that the tonality you're looking to strike with Borderlands, which whether you like it or not,

and your mileage may vary on the overall vibe of these games and certainly in adapting them truthfully to their core, that's not going to be for everybody. But if you're not even going to do the thing, I don't know what you're making. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know whether that would have saved it if people's heads were getting chopped off

and people were dropping F-bombs. I don't know that that would have made this movie good. But it might have saved it for somebody. I do think part of the problem is that this is a property that first came out in 2009. And if you were 15 years old when Borderlines came out, which I would say is like the prime demo for this game, no shame to anyone who is really into borderlands.

Like that's really who you're speaking to. By now, when the movie comes out, you are a grown-ass adult who knows better than to like this. And why have Eli Roth if you're just going to make him make a PG-13 movie? Exactly. Right. Exactly. Yes. I don't know whether he really was that attached to the source material.

It doesn't seem like it. But if you want to play to his strengths, such as they are, then you'd think you would want to just lean into the darkness and the violence. And that's not what happened here. So release the Rothcut, I guess. Maybe anyone. Don't. No. Don't.

Hashtag, release the Rothcut? Should we start that here now? I don't know. I love that Borland has transformed the normally, even-handed, even-keeled Rob Mahoney into the Charles Holmes of this podcast asking, what are we doing here and not coming up with any answers. And it's really like, you know, we're in favor of art that people labor over getting released than seeing the light of day. But if Lionsgate had pulled a Warner Brothers discovery here

and had just shelved this thing a la Batgirl or Coyote v. Acme and taken the tax right down, would the world be worse off? Would that be better for all involved, or are you glad that it's out there? I think this could have been a TV show, honestly. You could say that about a lot of video game adaptations. It's sort of like every week is a new mission, right? Yes.

Right. Yes. Or even different characters like you were speaking to me, like a different weirdo every week who we zoom in on. Like that makes a lot of sense as a format. Yeah, just make this Scooby-Doo, essentially. Hell yeah. Another movie that was Shell to sell. He's one of it. But yeah, it surprises me. Not that I was expecting, you know, we've seen the huge hits and the award winners like The Last of Us and Fallout and Fallout sort of similar in some respects is maybe the biggest TV hit of the year. And I didn't think that meant that every video game adaptation. from now on would be great and popular necessarily. But it seemed like the more encouraging development, even than that, was that even the bad ones, the bar was fairly high, right? Like the ceiling super high, but the floor far higher than it used to be. So even the like kind of meh, you know, like Grand Turismo or Halo or Knuckles, right? Like if this is as bad as it's going to get or even ones that weren't great,

like uncharted or Five Nights at Freddy's would make a, ton of money. And so I sort of thought the days of video game movies with single digit rotten tomato scores and bad box office performance might be behind us for the most part, but here we are. There was at least one left, which again, it almost makes me nostalgic for the days when we would talk about the video game movie curse, right? The curse has been broken. So it's like we can kind of lament the failures of this movie without it reflecting on this medium that we love, whether that's movies or video games, right? It's not a referendum anymore. I feel like the weight has been removed where we can say this is a bad movie, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything more about video

games or adaptations of video games. Yeah, Ben, I've cracked the code here. If there are any executives listening trying to figure out what to adapt. Okay. Here's the secret sauce, ready? Yeah. Pick something with a good story. Yeah, that's not a bad idea. It's a strong start of point. Yeah, because a lot of the lessons that we learned that we thought a lot of Hollywood people learned, and we've talked about this in previous pods, but it seemed like, okay, don't just go for the most recognizable property or the best-selling property if the material isn't really up to it, right? If it doesn't really lend itself to a narrative, non-interactive art form, they disobeyed that rule, right, here with borderlands to some extent. And then also have the

creator of the game involved in some kind of crucial capacity, seems like something that often helps at least. And, you know, gearbox is listed as one of the production companies here. So clearly it had some input, but this wasn't like the Last of Us where you had Druckman kind of actually writing the show, not that that is necessary every time exactly, but I'm not sure how much really guidance there was here. Or failing that, at least, has someone who really cares about and understands the games, right, and knows why you're making this movie, aside from the fact that people know the name

and maybe it'll make some money, like Mason did with The Last of Us, where he just had a real deep-seated affection for that franchise and for the story it told and wanted to translate it to a scripted TV form where other people could encounter it. It doesn't seem like any of those things have happened here. I mean, what it does do, I guess,

is throw money at the problem. So even though it doesn't always look like a $110 million budget movie, it did have that budget. It does have stars, obviously. I hope Kate Blanchett got paid because evidently she didn't for playing Gladriol in the Word of the Rings. So, you know, just make up for lost time and lost money, I guess. So, you know, get quality people associated with the project is something that earlier video game movies could have learned from. And they did that at least. But it just wasn't enough.

So if you had to run down like a list of several keys, that we've kind of derived from the successful projects. This one didn't collect enough of those keys, much as the characters who were trying to open the vault failed to for much of the movie. Are there any other takeaways about this adaptation as an adaptation or just as a film that you care to share? I mean, as far as that story part of it goes,

I feel like you can really feel borderly and squirming against it for a lot of its runtime, trying to find some reason for it to exist, some reason for the story to happen, And some reason for these characters to be together, I thought it really struggled with the, I guess I'll just start traveling with you now, aspect of like party building in video games

that we just kind of accept because I want to play as that character. But there's just no conceivable reason any of these people would want to be together, much less risking their lives together. Right. And they change so many little things about these characters and little things about the story to try to make it work and try to make it hang together.

And I think in doing so, betray the fact that they don't really get anything about this property or what makes it attractive in the first place. Even something as small as the fact that, like, Lilith isn't a vault hunter in this story. Why? Why is it more important to hang the story on Lilith having mommy issues and being a vault skeptic versus having, having like renegates, having mercenaries, having, like, just to make her a bounty hunter, which is really just kind of adjacent anyway, I don't really understand so many of the changes that they tried to make. Yeah.

That seemed almost like an attempt to kind of add an emotional core to the movie, and it just doesn't really land. You don't really get a sense of great affection among these characters, even at the end of the movie as they're celebrating. And Cape Blanchett's trying. She's trying to give it that kind of heft, but it's just the script just does not support that weight. Her Her Herculean effort on the line delivery of saying, like,

memories are more powerful than anything Atlas could ever create or whatever. I salute you. Kate Blanchett, honestly, maybe our greatest working actor. Yeah, you know. And here she is. Anyone could make Tar a great movie. That's not true. But, you know, like you give someone a material, right?

Then it's easier to pull it off. But this, not everyone could just step into borderlands and make it borderline tolerable, which she did for large scratch. And she's on the screen. almost all the time too. If anyone's just like, oh, you know, they got Cape Blanchet to like play some bit part so they could brag about her being in the movie.

No, like she's there. She is very much the star and the lead and just a constant presence on the screen, which is welcome, but shocking. And yeah, at the beginning of the movie, I guess the very first scene, right, you see Krieg and Roland break Tiny Tina out of prison. And there's like, I guess,

a sense that they have some sort of, Bond, like that maybe they've been captives together, but like, we just don't get really any sense of that backstory or like why they would want to free her or anything other than it's just kind of there the whole time. Craig is just there. Yeah. He's there to bust down doors and occasionally like throw people into pits. Yes.

And I don't know how complex Krieg is going to be in the best of circumstances. But even so, there's just, you know, not much to the movie other than just kind of going from point A to point B. If they wanted to make a silent Krieg movie of him wandering through the desert, I would welcome it relative to this borderlands. Yeah. Give me the Logan with Krieg. The gritty reboot of Krieg. Yeah. Well, here's a challenge to both of you. Say something nice about Borderlands because, you know, we've been mean, I think not undeservedly so. But can you come up with other positives, other things to praise beyond Cape Blanche's performance? Sure. Yeah, definitely.

You know, a lot of times the production design was cool, not consistently, but there were moments where the production design was very faithful to the game in a way that was positive. Yeah, I was going to say the costumes done by Daniel Orlandi, who I believe worked on Logan, actually, looked pretty good. Didn't really look like cheap cosplay to me. Just, you know, kind of looked like the characters kind of looked like they belong in that world. I liked Cape Lanchett's wig.

Yes. I was doing a lot of work. Whoever made that wig. Absolutely. Yeah. She might have been getting paid by the hair flip in this movie, by the way. It's in the cards. Yeah.

Anything else, Rob, other than the wig? Honestly, like, other than the wig and Kate, it's tough. Yeah. There were hits and misses for some of the other performers. I don't blame Jack Black for the state of this movie. Yeah, Clapchap's supposed to be annoying, right? He's supposed to be annoying. And honestly, to the extent that this movie has some laughs,

I think he's responsible for more of them than anybody, which makes sense. Kevin Hart is doing his best with the part he should not be in. Jamie Lee Curtis is, Jamie Lee Curtis, not only playing a mom figure to Cape Blanchett, but also a massive dork does not work at all. Yeah, no. But I think there's something in all those performances

where it's like a moment, a bit of star power, just like pure charisma that makes sense. No one is awful, except for maybe the whole Creed character. The Creed character is bad, and also I'm just going to, I'm going to choose not to say anything about Ariana Greenblatt in this movie, and we're going to let her hang out on the corner.

Could be a worse, I guess, adaptation of Tiny Tina, maybe some aspects of that character have not aged particularly well. I mean, you're telling me she's cutesy and violent? We've never seen that before. I would say I thought the score was pretty good. The score by Steve Jablotsky, not bad. More score, less soundtrack would be a big improvement for this movie, I think.

Sounded somewhat stirring at times. So, yeah, there were aspects of the production that were not bad. And again, just the star power, the acting talent on display here, I think made it somewhat watchable at times, halfway watchable, as I said earlier. All right. given all we've said, is this the biggest flop to feature multiple Oscar winners? This is sort of like a film history question, but I don't mean Oscar winners before they broke out where you're like, look at what they went on to do from these humble origins. I mean people who have already been honored as the best of their profession and then decided

to appear in a movie anyway. Can you guys think of any comps? Because this is not a Godfather part three level flop. I think this is worse than that. I have something. Okay. I have a movie. Hit me. That I hated way worse than this.

All right. That has two Academy Award winning actors in it. Beautiful. And that is 2008's Wanted, featuring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. Wow. That movie is horrendous. Horrendous.

One of my least favorite movies I've ever, seen in a theater. And some people love this movie. Yes. I thought it was endlessly obnoxious, like, pandering teenage boy crap with one of the worst endings I've ever seen in a movie theater that instantly cuts to new metal credits. Okay. It's pretty good.

I've never felt closer to you than this moment. Bending the bullet. You got to bend the bullet. I remember, like, physical looms being a big plot. Point in Wanted for some reason. Very strange movie. A lot of weaving happening. I have a counter to you, though.

Okay. A movie so bad, they had to edit buttholes out of it. 2019's Cat starring Dame Judy Dench and Jennifer Hudson. Wow. Very good. Okay. Yeah, that's a disaster. Got to be in the running.

Great pick. Great pick. No fault of Taylor Swift who gave a great performance in that film. I consulted a couple of critics, including the Lord of Letterbox himself, Sean Fennessey, who has seen Borderlands, but for some reason it's not devoting an episode of The Big Picture to it. He left that for us. Thanks, Sean. What a coward. Yeah. A couple people named 2001 Romcom Town and Country starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton, which made 10 million worldwide on an inexplicable $105 million budget similar to Borderlands.

And Warren Beatty, I guess he won an Oscar for Reds for Best Director, but he was multi-time nominated as an actor, so I think it counts. Also surfaced the final cut, the 2004 psychological thriller starring Robin Williams and Mirosorvino, which made less than $4 million worldwide. No information available about its budget. The reviews were somewhat stronger than Borderlands, but far from strong. The story was interesting, at least. And then I guess you've got to mention while we're talking about Beatty, the notorious Ishtar, the 1987 flop with Beatty and Dustin Hoffman.

So that's got to be mentioned in any conversation, I guess, of all-time terrible movies starring pretty important and well-respected people. I mean, Ben, you mentioned Morbius earlier in the pot. Jared Leto won enough. All right. We don't acknowledge that in polite company. Yeah, the Academy inspires sometimes. Sean also mentioned Mike Nichols' follow-ups to the graduate Catch-22 and the Day of the Dolphin. So I guess I'll throw those out there.

So, yeah, there's some precedent. You gotta go way back pretty much, you know? I know, right. It's a rare company. Yeah, I think we kind of covered it here. But I welcome suggestions. Anyone wants to write into Ring Reverse Gaming at gmail.com or tweet at us or whatever. Please let us know, which we're missing.

And while we're ranking and comping, where does this rank among the worst video game movies for you? Like if you had to do some sort of tier list or if you had to comp this to another video game movie, like is this toward the bottom? Does this just kind of fit in among the vast sea of awful video game movies from decades ago? Rob, where would you put it? I think this is quite towards the bottom. But as I said, not so far down that I would enjoy it in a way I would enjoy a street, fighter or the first Super Mario movie.

Those have a kitch to them that I appreciate. The other thing that came to mind for me watching this, in addition to just being generally embarrassing, was it's kind of Ouvabolian to me. Like there is a blood-raney kind of quality happening here. So whatever you may think of his various video game adaptations, alone at the dark, house of the dead, all those, I think this is kind of of a piece with those.

That's the ultimate derogatory adjective for a video game movie, Uphibolian. Matt, what do you think? I am spot on with Rob. If you were to separate this into like a tier list, it is at the bottom of the tier that is almost at the bottom. It's almost in the worst tier, but it's slightly above it. Right.

D plus, not S. It's not entirely irredeemable. I think, yeah, like score-wise, review-wise, maybe box office-wise, it would, I think, fit in well with that first generation of live action. adaptations, like 90s movies, but it does lack that kind of kitsch factor, you know? Maybe the budget's too big. It's like too professionally made, almost too polished.

Not that it's completely polished, but it is. I think there's a little too much care and production quality here to have that kind of like ironic rewatch factor or even I guess, you know, maybe look, if we were kids seeing this now at a formative stage in our lives, perhaps we would look back decades hence and say, remember the Borderlands movie? I don't know, maybe. Because when you're young, you will watch some pretty terrible stuff and think it's good, or at least look back on it fondly, right? So we don't have that kind of attachment to this material. But yeah, it kind of, it's like a doom level adaptation to me, I guess, just very generic and forgettable and kind of like, you know,

reminiscent of the source material but doesn't really do anything interesting with it and has some star power, but that's not enough to save it and has some very underbaked villains going on here. So that's kind of the level that we're talking about here. So maybe then we can envision a better future. I thought it might be a fun exercise. Given that video game adaptations are all arranged right now, if Cape Lanchet will be in borderlands, no one is off limits, right? No one is avail for a future video game adaptation. So let's each pick a non-prestige game or series, not Oscar bait, but Borderlands Adjase that has not yet been adapted. And fantasy cast, fill out the cast with improbably accomplished actors, and you must select two Oscar winners, or at least two Oscar winners. Rob, can you give me a pitch? You have one in mind? I do. You know, per the brief, I tried to find something that would be true to the spirit of adapting borderlands, which is to say something without much of a story to grab onto,

but maybe enough of a world and enough lore that you could make something of it. And so I was trying to envision an Overwatch movie. Characters that I have spent a lot of time with, especially in the earlier iterations of the game. And I think you could probably sell some people on a glossy blizzard-produced overwatch movie. Sure. Like, let's get Charlize Theron as Mercy in there.

Nice. Tilda Swin, as Moira is easy. easy money, that might as well be mocap. I think Josh Brolin could be Ryan Hart, and featuring Daniel Day Lewis as Wrecking Ball the Hamster. Let's get him on board. I almost brought back Daniel Day for my pitch. I was like, what's going to finally get him out of retirement?

It's going to be a video game adaptation, obviously, right? There's no question about it. I think this is a great call because Blizzard has evidently decided not to go for the PVE story elements of Overwatch 2 that were promised. So there's probably plenty of plot left on the cutting room floor here that they could hand over to Daniel Day Lewis and co to make this movie happen. I like that. Matt, what you got? Well, Ben.

First of all, I just want to say, why aren't they making Grand Theft Auto movies? Great question. Why don't they just put Nick Cage and whoever's crazy in Grand Theft Auto movies of various themes and just collect tons of money? I don't know why they're not doing it. Anyway. I think it's because they already made it and it was called Gone and. in 60 seconds. And they're already collecting tons of money as it is.

But yes. That's true. I'm going to pick something that has been adapted, but not into a movie. Okay. And this is very on brand for me, but I'm going with Castlevania. Nice. All right. And we're going to do Killian Murphy as Dracula.

Mm-hmm. And we're going to have Rami Malik as Alucard. And we're going to have some father's son brooding with some weird faces and dimly lit castles. Honestly, many of Romi Malik's performance, I have had the thought, this could not possibly be a human being. So I think you could work very well as Alukar. Well, I guess half in that case. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a proven formula, proven IP. The Castlevania TV adaptation is one of our finest, right? And was kind of a transformative one. I mean, that was one of the ones that really sent the signal that, hey, TV is the

more natural home for video game adaptations, which is another key and lesson that Borderlands seems to have ignored. Okay. I will be adapting the classic first-person shooter franchise, Sirius Sam. Wow. In the games, Sam is voiced by the aptly named John J. Dick, who for obvious reasons does not go by Jack. He will not be reprising his role here. Sam Sirius Stone is a wisecracking, unstoppable soldier in the Earth Defense Force, the name of another franchise I consider adapting here. He's on a mission to avenge slash save humanity, so we need someone who can handle action and

comedy and deliver one-liners with a Bruce Campbell commitment. If we could age down Bruce Campbell, if we could do some sort of like CGI, you know, young Bruce Campbell, I'd be on board for that. But if not, my choice to play Sam is not my Oscar winner, though he is a two-time people's choice award nominee, Chase Crawfoot, aka Nate from Gossip Girl, the Dean from the Boys. Now, Sam's nemesis is mental, a godlike being who plays a role in every game but has never been seen in the series. So this is a blank slate. I could go anywhere with this one. Naturally, I am going with Morgan Freeman. He played God. He's provided the voice of God. He's expressed interest

in playing Satan. So I think mental is close enough. I think he'd enjoy exploring the complexities of this part. My other Oscar winner will be Jessica Chastain as Natrixa, aka Neti, Sam's Cortana-esque computer companion. And little known fact, Jessica Chastain was attached to the Jake Gyllenhaal movie adaptation of Ubisoft's The Division. I thought you were going to say Prince of Persia for a second. That one unfortunately got made. This one has not been made, but clearly Jessica is game for a game movie, and she's been pining to appear in a video game adaptation for eight years now.

Doesn't seem like the division is on the horizon. Social Jump at this opportunity. And since Jack Black played Bowser and Claptrap and is also slated to play Steve in the Minecraft movie, we clearly can get him for this. So I'm casting him as frequent final boss, Uxon, the vicious warlock, who's sort of the Sauron to Mentals Morbath. Wow. Yeah, serious, Sam.

How many pages you got rid of this? Yeah, sounds like you're pretty deep. I'm working on the spec script right now. Yeah, no one's bitten yet. Ben, what's that email again? If anyone wants to email you to make this happen. Yeah, Riggerverse Gaming at table.com. Hit me up, please.

Or if you want to pitch a project, let us know also. Lastly, these are, you know, from our fevered imaginations, but which real adaptation are we looking forward to the rest of this year? We've got Tomb Raider, the Legend of Laircraft, we've got Like a Dragon Yakuza, we've got Arcane Season 2, we've got Sonic the Hedgehog 3. What's going to get us back on track here? Matt, what are you most hyped for?

Well, I'm hyped for Like a Dragon, Yakuza, as someone who's been a fan of those games. I'm a little apprehensive about it. I think it's going to be hard to hit that tone accurately. I do have a little worry that it might just be a show that has that name and doesn't bear much resemblance. But I'm still holding out hope. Because it's a really fun, playful,

but also at times very dramatic and meaningful series. And that's hard to do both. And I hope that they can. I'm with you on that. It checks a lot of the boxes we've been talking about here. It's TV, not movies. It's got sort of a strong basis in story, right? Like, there's a long history to this series.

It's probably being made by Prime Video, right? Which is not going to spare any expense, one would think. They've had success with this genre. So, yeah, I have high hopes. Rob, are you going to go with the Akiza, too? Or do you also have a different pick? I'm actually more excited than I would have thought for this Tomb Raider series. And I think it has less to do with the IP,

which Tomb Raider, I'm kind of lukewarm on to begin with, and more that specifically Netflix's, like, animation adaptation agenda has worked pretty well for me. I did like the Castlevania series. Obviously, Arcane falls into this bucket, too. I thought, cyberpunk edge runners is probably one of the best-looking video game adaptations we've seen in a long time. And this is a different style, but looks really clean, looks really dynamic.

I'm really curious to see what they do with Laura. Yeah, me too. Yeah. No shots at Laura Croft, but I will probably pick Arcane. Excited for Like a Dragon also. But Arcane, this is the grand conclusion, sadly, right? And unfortunately, a lot of it has leaked already in the great Netflix anime leak of 2024. I will be avoiding it until I can watch the finish product in high resolution.

But we will certainly have Ringaverse coverage of Arcane, whether it be on Button Mash or Mint Edition, because we've got a lot of people excited for the finish of. of that series. And we'll see what other leak of legends inspired spin-offs will come down the pike after that. All right. In the words of handsome Jack, who had no words in the Borderlands movie, this is the end, beautiful friend. Like Krieg, we looked into the heart of darkness and we ate it all. Matt, Rob, I don't know if Spotify Awards hazard pay, but if so, you have earned it by going to see this film and discussing it with me. Glad you guys could come on this journey with me. Great to talk to you, as always.

Honestly, this redeemed the whole process for me. I was in a very dark place. This has been very therapeutic. Yeah, I agree. One last note. Let's get Francis McDormant in a cyberpunk movie. Fuck yeah. Let's do that.

Old but inspired casting choice. Yes, we hope this podcast will serve the same purpose for people who are streaming out of the theater if they ventured to see this film. And they're left with that sour taste that Rob mentioned. And we will make it a little sweeter here with some fine conversation. Thanks to Devin Ronaldo for producing this episode and to Arjuna Remk pal for making the dubious decision to allow a podcast about Borderlands to be released. Not quite as dubious maybe as allowing Borderlands itself to be released. Thanks to Cape Blanchet and her husband and her agent for making the even more dubious decision to agree to play Lilith.

And thanks to our listeners who made the wise decision to listen to this podcast and save some time and money if they listened to this episode instead of seeing the movie. But MASH will be back later this month to discuss Star Wars Outlaws, which we sure hope will be better than Borderlands. Email us at RingiverseGaming at gmail.com, and if you made it to the very end of an hour-plus podcast about Borderlands, you're the heroes of this little adventure. We'll talk to you next time. It's finally over. I can see a bright light. It's blinding. Beautiful.

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